Wednesday, 25 Jul 2001

Irrigation Irritation

U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said yesterday that she had the legal authority to release a small amount of irrigation water for farmers to use in the Klamath Basin on the Oregon-California border. All irrigation water from Upper Klamath Lake has been cut off since April to protect endangered suckerfish and threatened coho salmon. Farmers in recent weeks have tried four times to get water to flow illegally into an irrigation canal, forcing federal law-enforcement officers to intervene. Farmers said Norton's decision to release water as soon as today would do little good for their crops this season, and environmentalists said the move violated the Endangered Species Act.

My Bonn Lies Over the Ocean

While the rest of the world moves forward with the Kyoto treaty, the Bush administration claims it is cooking up its own strategy to fend off global warming. But some officials involved in the administration policy review say there has been little real pressure from the White House to come up with a new plan anytime soon. The action may be shifting to the U.S. Congress, where several bills to address climate change are already being considered. Some members of Congress say American businesses will be hit hard by the administration's decision not to participate in Kyoto -- businesses in other countries will be first out of the gate with innovations to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, and U.S. firms will be left out of new carbon-trading markets. Read more about the fallout from the negotiations in Bonn from Elliot Diringer, a veteran environmental reporter now with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, on the Grist Magazine website.

EV Rider

As part of a pilot program by California to reduce pollution and increase the popularity of gas-free vehicles, Anaheim is offering free use of 10 electric cars in some of its lower-income neighborhoods. The golf cart-like cars are available to people who have a valid driver's license and a decent driving record. With a maximum speed of 35 miles per hour, the cars are suited mainly for quick neighborhood trips, which account for about 85 percent of pollution caused by cars. Gabby Castelan, an Anaheim resident, said, "We use them all the time. We go everywhere -- to pick up my daughter at school, to the post office, to get lunch."

Turning Over a New Leach

After spending more than $80 million on the project, the U.S.'s largest gold-mining company has ended plans to open the first major open-pit, cyanide-leach mine in Washington state. The Crown Jewel Mine in northeastern Washington would have blown the side off a mountain to extract about 1.4 million ounces of gold. Houston-based Newmont Mining Corp. said yesterday it had decided that the mine would not return enough to make it financially worthwhile. In the past, former Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) helped fight off efforts by the Clinton administration to kill the mine -- a position that may have contributed to his defeat by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Hudson Hawk

General Electric is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar PR blitz to try to sway the Bush administration to withdraw a proposed plan to clean up the Hudson River. The Clinton-era plan calls for dredging a 40-mile stretch of the river to remove PCBs dumped there for decades by GE. The company would have to pick up the $460 million tab for the dredging. GE claims that the Hudson is naturally cleaning itself and that dredging now would make the pollution problem worse. In its ads, GE says it has the support of local communities in opposing the dredging. But opinion polls show significant support for the Clinton plan, which has been backed by 66 communities along the river. Still, the GE offensive may be working -- the New York attorney general warned yesterday that the U.S. EPA is considering scaling back the dredging plan.

Iceland Iceland Baby

Iceland is gunning to be the world's first carbon-free economy. The country is in something of a bind, as it now has very low carbon-dioxide emissions and the Kyoto treaty on climate change gives it little room to expand its economy in a way that would increase its emissions. Already, 67 percent of Iceland's energy comes from emissions-free geothermal heat and hydroelectric dams. During the next two decades, Iceland wants to convert its buses, cars, and fishing fleet to run off hydrogen fuel cells, which emit only heat and water. Giant companies like DaimlerChrysler and Royal Dutch/Shell, as well as the European Union as a whole, are investing in the fuel-cell projects.